I went to a retreat last weekend where I felt, expectedly, how I usually do in large, "freestyle" groups: utterly alone.
The irony is in that I like being alone, and dare I even say, the feeling of being alone, but not when I'm actually not alone. I suppose this is the type of feeling people describe as the feeling when living in New York City-- full of people but at its core, lonely.
Regardless if it was a retreat hosted by a church I've attended for over 10 years (it was not), I've always felt this uneasiness at retreats. And I won't even go into detail about the whole spiritual aspect of it all. Needless to say, a retreat hosted by a church I don't quite know anyone is social suicide. I began thinking about what I had just read days before preparing myself to stop talking about how much I don't want to go and start thinking about the good that can come out of it. I'm a natural pessimist (except when it comes to peoples' intentions, in which they also call this form of thinking, "naivete"), but I've been trying to be positive, if for anything, just to make myself feel better. I'm only 24, so I have a long way to go to live such a negative lifestyle, and that, to me, sounds like it will be a very long and difficult life rather than a pleasant one. It was an excerpt that I read, of a memorandum written by Jonathan Franzen of his dear friend David Foster Wallace. It wasn't a complete surprise, his suicide, but it certainly sounded like David Foster Wallace was essentially destined for it, the way that he was carrying on with his life. What ultimately intrigued me about DFW was that he was horridly afraid of social gatherings, and rarely went anywhere without his wife, Karen. Even when he had to make an appearance, he left immediately after his presence was no longer needed. We call him anti-social, reclusive, and weird. But it's most likely called introversion, which social media thinks is way cool if it's in the form of a filtered photo, a $4 cup of latte art (1/4th of it, at least), and a book. Maybe a pen and some paper, too. Even better if you stayed at home in bed next to a window because the more "you" time you have, the cooler it is-- online. Offline, those are just things outcasts like to do. Thus, have no friends, no social life, etc.
That weekend, I mostly thought about David Foster Wallace's suicide as I reflected on my own social anxiety.
This past weekend, however, I mostly thought about two things: heartbreakers and mothers.
I watched two incredible French-Canadian films directed and starred by the lovely Xavier Dolan. The first, Les Amours Imaginaires ("Heartbeats") was ingenious to me, mostly the foolish honesty-- how authentic and raw and vulnerable the painful truths were about each character and how they feel and act. The love-hate torment of being led on. I Killed My Mother, which is Dolan's semi-autobiography, is a story I, and maybe a few others in a less extreme way, can relate to. The inexplicable nature of love you feel for your mother was so exquisitely captured that I cried a couple times (minus the reality that Asians tend to be less forward about their emotions than are, say,16 year-old Quebecois boys). But to think that a 20 year-old understood this to produce it! "You, me, and Xaiver," Stephen said to me, as I released my fervor to him about our mothers. These two films are now at the top of my modest movie list.
